Resolved Upgrading a late 2012 Mac Mini but have some questions?

[indigobleu]

Hello
I'm new to this forum but going to dive right in!

I'm planning on updating a late 2012 Mac Mini. After some research it seems the way to go is a 1T SSD drive and max the ram at 16 GB... unless there are any better suggestions. I plan to remove my current drive and load the SSD drive, then load the old drive into an external case. The old drive currently has Mountain Lion system software.

Now the questions:

Can format the new SSD drive from my old drive in an external case?

Can anyone suggest highest operating system to go with?
(Been reading about some issues with High Sierra on the older macs)

Any other issues before doing this upgrade I should know would be appreciated. I'm not novice but most of my hardware/software upgrading experience has been with PowerPC Macs!

 

[jay47]

Do you mean clone the old drive to the new SSD ? Yes you can but getting trim working on mountain lion isn't as easy as with El Capitan & later versions . You can even put your old drive in a enclosure & boot from it & still use mountain lion with whatever OS thats installed on your internal SSD .

If you mean format the new drive it can be done after installing the SSD into the mini using a USB installer.

Upgraded my 2012 mini with 2 Samsung evo SSD in raid0 configuration with 16gb ram & get nearly 1 gb read & write speeds . Boot up & shut down times went from about 30 seconds with the original spinning drive to about 5 seconds .

Have no issues at all with Sierra , can't comment on high Sierra on the 2012 mini but had a few problems with high Sierra on my MacBook Air .

Theres many videos on youtube with step by step instructions .

 

[indigobleu]

Do you mean clone the old drive to the new SSD ? Yes you can but getting trim working on mountain lion isn't as easy as with El Capitan & later versions . You can even put your old drive in a enclosure & boot from it & still use mountain lion with whatever OS thats installed on your internal SSD .

If you mean format the new drive it can be done after installing the SSD into the mini using a USB installer.

Thank you for replying, I should have been more specific, sorry. I'm wanting to upgrade the system software to newest my mac can handle, Mountain Lion is having too many issues being so old. The plan after I get the new drive in place, formated and new system in place is to clear the old drive and use for backing up files.

I can't seem to find the USB system installers, they used to be on Ebay, but currently don't seem to be there now.
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If you mean format the new drive it can be done after installing the SSD into the mini using a USB installer.

I'm a bit old school, last time I updated system software (aside from the Mac Mini automatically doing it by direct download) was on CD's. Sorry if this is a stupid question but were you saying I could download the system software to USB memory stick and then boot from that to the new drive?

 

[jay47]

You can easily make your own usb installer instructions are easy to find . If you want to upgrade to high Sierra you will need a computer running either el capitan or Sierra or the full 4.8gb installer won't download & will get a 20mb file which can't be used to make a bootable usb installer.

Could format the new drive by holding the option key with the old drive in a enclosure but still need to get the OS installed . Could also use internet recovery after installing the new drive which you will also be able to format but will only have 2 options with internet recovery . Install the original OS that came with the mini which is mountain lion or high Sierra depending on the combination of keys pressed when starting internet recovery .

Sounds complicated but its pretty easy to upgrade the drive in the mini as long as you take your time & follow the instructions . Only risk is damaging the ir sensor or one of the connectors on the motherboard . I was worried a bit about damaging my mini but turned out being so easy I installed dual drives in both my mini's without any problems at all .

If your current drive is in the lower bay the above instructions will work & only the fan & wifi antenna only needs to be removed to replace the drive . If its in the upper bay like both mine were you need to remove the motherboard & power supply to replace the drive . Can check which bay your drive is in by looking in system properties & clicking on the sata drive should say upper or lower bay .

Yes you can download whatever OS you want to install & create a bootable USB from the downloaded installer file & install on the new SSD . But requires another Mac to do that , if you don't have another Mac to make the USB installer internet recovery will let you format then install either mountain lion or high Sierra on the new SSD after its installed .

 

[indigobleu]

You can easily make your own usb installer instructions are easy to find . If you want to upgrade to high Sierra you will need a computer running either el capitan or Sierra or the full 4.8gb installer won't download & will get a 20mb file which can't be used to make a bootable usb installer.

Thank you, the video you posted is one I saved to do the upgrade! Great minds and all that! The info above though was what I wasn't sure about. I think you're saying I need to upgrade my Mountain Lion first to at least El Capitan before I can make a bootable usb installer on a thumb drive to a higher system, correct?

 

[jay47]

The App Store won't allow you to download the full 4.8gb installer unless you are using a Mac with at least El Capitan installed otherwise you will only get the 20mb upgrade file which will still allow you to upgrade to high Sierra but your not able to create a USB installer . Not really a issue unless you want to upgrade more than just the one mini . The usb installer allows the install of high Sierra without having to re download the installer for each Mac you want to upgrade .

This only applies to high Sierra . If you want to upgrade say your mountain lion install on your old disk to high Sierra you would need to install El Capitan first or it won't allow the install of high Sierra without upgrading to El Capitan first .

If you just install the new drive into your mini , with or without formatting the drive first you can just hold the command + R keys at boot up and it will install mountain lion via internet recovery . If you want to install high Sierra on the new drive then you would hold option + command + R to install high Sierra . Shift + option + command + R at boot will install the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

Correction :** If you haven't already updated to macOS Sierra 10.12.4 or later, Option-Command-R installs the macOS that came with your Mac, or the version closest to it that is still available.

Theres more than one way to install Mac OS X & i am not doing a very good job of explaining because I just installed my new ssd drives then used a USB installer of Sierra to install .

Maybe someone else can explain it a bit more clearly .

 

[CoastalOR]

I would recommend installing macOS Sierra (10.12.6). It has been very stable for me.
Here are the requirements for Sierra (note you can directly install it from 10.8):
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp742?locale=en_US

Here is the Apple download link for Sierra:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/macos-sierra/id1127487414?mt=12

Make sure you have a good backup before installing a new OS in case there are problem or you want to revert back to 10.8. I would recommend using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your current internal drive to an external drive. It is free to use and fully functional for 30 days. It will also clone your restore partition.
https://bombich.com

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Use the external enclosure to "prep and test" the new SSD BEFORE you install it inside the Mini.

Or... just leave the SSD in the enclosure and boot and run "externally", like I've been doing with my own 2012 i7 Mini for five years now. Boots fast, runs great.
As too many others have discovered through experience, it can be hazardous to open up the Mini... some "easily breakable" connections inside. I let mine be.

As others have suggested, DON'T go to High Sierra (at least not yet).
Either Low Sierra or El Capitan will do.
I prefer El Cap right now.

Try these links for El Cap:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206886
https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-el-capitan/id1147835434?mt=12

Also, I suggest you use a USB flashdrive (16gb, or try 8gb) installer to install the new OS.
Use the free app "Boot Buddy" to create the flashdrive installer.
Things just seem to go better when you do it this way.

 

[Boyd01]

Or... just leave the SSD in the enclosure and boot and run "externally", like I've been doing with my own 2012 i7 Mini for five years now. Boots fast, runs great.

I have been doing the same on two 2012 Mini's and it works great, with no risk of accidentally damaging something inside when you open up a Mini. Not quite as fast as an internal drive, but no slouch either. I'm using a Samsung 1tb T3 on a 2012 quad and a Samsung 500gb T3 on a 2012 base mini.

 

[indigobleu]

The App Store won't allow you to download the full 4.8gb installer unless you are using a Mac with at least El Capitan installed...

Hello again,
I did the update, everything went fine. I did make a change that made things go more smoothly for the upgrade. Instead of the SSD drive at almost 3 times the cost I went with a new regular hard drive that had El Capitan pre-installed from Ebay. I don't have heavy usage on my computer so thought the savings was worth it for this older Mac Mini. I also installed a new fan, maxed the ram and upgraded to High Sierra. Everything is running great! An additional thing I did was to get an external hard drive holder that now holds my old Mini hard drive and it is now an additional backup of my old files... (note, I also did a proper backup of the old hard drive to another external backup drive I had. I'm really glad I did the upgrade, gives my computer several more years of life. Thank you very much for your help!
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I would recommend installing macOS Sierra (10.12.6). It has been very stable for me./QUOTE]

Thank you for responding! I did do the High Sierra upgrade and it has been operating flawlessly.

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OP: As others have suggested, DON'T go to High Sierra (at least not yet).
Either Low Sierra or El Capitan will do.
I prefer El Cap right now.

Thank you for responding! I did run El Capitan for a few days before I decided to just go ahead and jump into the High Sierra. I didn't want to get too much info preloaded in my browsers, etc that would have to be done over. I don't have a USB backup for the High Sierra and still think that would be a good idea. The High Sierra is running fine on my upgraded Mini. I don't think you'd find the two systems that different.